Friday, January 31, 2014

Kentucky teachers, like those in a nationwide poll,
are enthusiastic about teaching the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
according to data released today by the Kentucky Department of Education.

The data stem from the Primary Sources survey
of 20,000 public school teachers nationwide last summer. The survey,
conducted by the Harrison Group, asked teachers across the country their
thoughts on implementing the Common Core State Standards -- a set of clear,
consistent guidelines for what students should know and be able to do for
success after graduation.

· 97 percent of teachers are aware of the new English/language arts and
mathematics standards

· 73 percent are enthusiastic about implementing the new standards in
their classrooms

· 73 percent believe implementing the standards is or will be challenging

· 74 percent believe implementing the standards will require them to make
changes in their teaching practice

· 73 percent felt they were prepared to teach the new standards in their
classrooms

· 76 percent believe the standards will have a positive impact on
students’ ability to think critically and use reasoning skills

Several hundred Kentucky teachers voiced their
opinions as part of the national survey. However, to gain a broader view of
what Kentucky teachers think, the Kentucky Department of Education followed up
with an online, anonymous, voluntary survey that was open from mid-November to
mid-December. Questions focused on the Kentucky Core Academic Standards
which include the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and
mathematics as well as the Next-Generation Science Standards. More than 6,700
Kentucky teachers responded to the open survey. Results show:

· 93 percent of those who teach English/language arts are implementing the
Kentucky Core Academic Standards in their classrooms

· 93 percent of those who teach mathematics are implementing the Kentucky
Core Academic Standards in their classrooms

· 49 percent of those who teach science have already started implementing
the new science standards in their classrooms

· 77 percent are enthusiastic about teaching the new standards in their
classrooms

· 78 percent believe implementing the new Kentucky Core Academic Standards
has required or will require changes to their teaching practice

· 86 percent feel they are prepared to teach new English/language arts and
mathematics standards

· 90 percent agree that the standards are more rigorous than previous
standards

· 67 percent believe the standards will have a positive impact on
college/career-readiness of students; 25 percent don’t’ think it will be
positive or negative; and only 8 percent think the standards will have a
negative effect

To help
the most students in their classroom meet the new Kentucky Core Academic
Standards, teachers say that they need a variety of additional resources. Of
those that responded to the survey:

·
60 percent need aligned instructional materials

·
56 percent need student-centered technology

·
54 percent they need formative assessments

·
52 percent need summative assessments

·
45 percent need new curricula

·
37 percent need additional professional development
on the new standards

Kentucky
Education Association president Stephanie Winkler is not surprised by the
results. The feedback she’s gotten from superintendents and teachers is also
largely positive.

I, as a
classroom teacher who just left in May, know that the standards not only made
me a more focused teacher, but I saw the benefit to my students," Winkler
said. “Kids are able to master concepts and think critically to apply their
knowledge, so when they go onto the next level, they’re more prepared, she
said.

Anybody
who would say that we need to get rid of the common core standards in Kentucky
has not been in the classroom and worked with them like the teachers have,”
Winkler said. “What we really need is resources to support professional
learning and aligned instructional materials and textbooks that support the standards’
implementation.”

Since the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 1 in 2009 and it became law,
teachers, administrators, school boards, professors and postsecondary leaders,
education professional associations, education advocacy groups, parent groups
and business organizations have been working diligently to implement its
provisions, including creating and implementing the new, more rigorous academic
standards. New English/language arts standards are being taught for the
third year; new science standards will be implemented in the fall. New
arts and humanities and social studies standards will follow in the future.

“Local
school boards have the authority to go above and beyond these standards at any
time; they represent the minimum of what students should know and be
able to do,” Education Commissioner Terry Holliday said. “Already,
districts choose and local boards of education approve the curriculum their
teachers use, so districts retain local control with the new standards.”

Holliday said the Kentucky Core Academic Standards
(KCAS) have resulted in great cost savings to the Commonwealth and came about
thanks to the involvement and input of hundreds of Kentucky educators.

“To abandon
the years’ worth of work and the millions of dollars spent to develop and
implement the new standards would be a waste and disservice to those who have
worked hard to fulfill the directives of Senate Bill 1,” Holliday said. “It
would be demoralizing to teachers to start over with new standards and a
setback to Kentucky students becoming college/career-ready.

2014 Friend of Education rallies business community – and the state – around educationThis from KSBA:

Dave
Adkisson

A
business leader with a heart for education has been honored with the
2014 Friend of Education Award by the Kentucky School Boards
Association.

Kentucky Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Dave
Adkisson, who most recently barnstormed the state with Education
Commissioner Terry Holliday to raise awareness and support for the
Common Core State Standards, was to be presented with the award Friday,
Jan. 31, during KSBA’s annual conference in Louisville.

Adkisson
has headed the Kentucky Chamber since 2005, leading its board to make
improving education in the state its No. 1 priority and to become more
proactive in shaping education policy.

Among those efforts were
the chamber’s adoption that same year of many legislative goals set by
the Business Forum for Education and its partnering with Amazon.com on a
drive that resulted in the awarding of more than 2,000 GEDs to
Kentuckians.

Adkisson also actively supported legislation in 2006
that required greater accountability in the ACT and WorkKeys exams,
additional school days and preschool expansion. He advocated creation of
the Index of Educational Progress, which combines multiple educational
attainment and achievement factors into a single index, now administered
through the University of Kentucky.

Because of the chamber’s
more prominent education profile, Kentucky’s university presidents asked
the group in 2007 to conduct an independent study, mandated by the
legislature, of higher education progress in the state. In 2009, under
Adkisson’s leadership, the chamber issued its Leaky Bucket report,
highlighting to Kentucky lawmakers that unsustainable growth in
pensions, corrections and Medicaid was robbing education of much-needed
funds. A follow-up report in 2011 continued the focus on education
funding.

Adkisson was the driving force behind creation of the
Leadership Institute for School Principals, which accepted its first
class of 48 principals in 2011. The institute provides participants with
free, year-long, personal, executive leadership training. The program,
which has benefited more than 200 principals, is supported financially
by the business community.

When the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation awarded the Kentucky Chamber a $500,000 grant in 2012 to
bolster business support for the Common Core State Standards, Adkisson
joined Holliday on a statewide tour to explain the standards. During
their travels, they distributed 10,000 business education kits, which
later became a model for similar campaigns in other states. As part of
that effort, the chamber also recruited 85 business leaders to join
Business Advocates for Education, which supported more rigorous
standards.

Adkisson was nominated for the Friend of Education
Award by the Owensboro Board of Education and Superintendent Dr. Nick
Brake. That area of the state benefited from Adkisson’s education
efforts when he served as CEO of the Owensboro Chamber of Commerce in
the 1990s. While working there, he helped found the Regional Alliance
for Education, a P-16 council, and, as Owensboro’s mayor, led a group
that worked on expanding Owensboro Community and Technical College.

Adkisson
serves as chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Education,
Employment and Training Policy Committee, is a founding board member of
the Fund for Transforming Education in Kentucky, a former chairman of
the Kentucky Advocates for Higher Education and serves on the Dean’s
Leadership Council at Harvard University. An Owensboro native, he is a
Georgetown College alumnus and holds a master’s degree from Harvard.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Working adults in Kentucky could soon have another option for completing their college degrees.

That
option is called the Commonwealth College, which would be an online
program that would allow students to complete work at their own pace.

Although Gov.
Steve Beshear’s latest budget proposal cut higher education by 2.5
percent, or $23 million, there were some bright spots for public
colleges and universities.

Among his infrastructure and project
allocations for higher education, Beshear included more than $3 million
($2 million for each year of the biennium budget for operations and $1.2
million to get the web portal up and running) to help launch the
Commonwealth College.

It’s modeled after the Kentucky Community
and Technical College System’s program called Learn On Demand. Students
could enroll at any time, pay comparable public university costs (those
have not yet been determined), and take online learning sections to earn
their college degree. All from home.

It’s estimated there are
700,000 working-age adults (between ages 24-64) who have some college
credit but have not completed their degrees.

“For those folks,
returning to a college campus for two years, or three years, is
unreasonable and unlikely," says Bob King, president of Kentucky’s
Council on Postsecondary Education.

Students will be encouraged
to take lower level general education courses through the KCTCS Learn On
Demand program and then move up when ready, he says.

There will
be limited degrees offered at the outset, depending on the state’s
needs, King says, adding Kentucky’s public universities have been
working with the Chamber of Commerce to determine what jobs will be in
demand in the future.

The problem is that Kentucky is not
preparing its workforce to meet the state’s demands in the coming years,
according to the CPE. In a report passed along to state lawmakers,
"experts predict by the year 2020, 56 percent of Kentucky's jobs will
require some level of postsecondary education."
But only 20 percent of Kentucky adults have a bachelor's degree or higher, the report says.

If the General Assembly approves funding, the Commonwealth College could be launched in 2015.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

An inconvenient truth is that the grand tradition of using the bully
pulpit to push for curriculum reform began with the Reagan
administration under his second education secretary, William J. Bennett.
Bennett used that bully pulpit to forcefully push for a combination of
changes—curriculum reform, accountability, and choice—that he believed
could help drive excellence in U.S. schools.

Conservative anxiety over conservative/libertarian attacks against Common Core is reaching a crescendo. The moderate conservatives at Fordham, who remember the genesis of national standards, wonder if the end of corporate school reform may be near.

The funny thing about eras is that it’s hard to know which one you
are in until it is coming to an end. As the fighting among conservatives
heats up over the Common Core, the era of standards-driven reform that
has defined conservative education policy for the past three decades is
brought into sharper relief.

Arne Duncan and Bill Bennett

But the approach that President Reagan and his secretary of education
Bill Bennett helped set in motion in the 1980s is under increasing
assault from a resurgent libertarian movement and the coopting of many
of the most popular ideas by a reform-minded Democratic president and
his own energetic secretary of education. Is 2014 the year the
conservative push for curricular and instructional excellence comes to
an end?

Those looking for answers would be wise to track the increasingly
acerbic discussion over the Common Core State Standards. What began as a
conversation about the quality, content, and rigor of the standards has
evolved into an increasingly polarized political debate that is
fracturing support for one of the most enduring conservative reforms...

Much of the anti–Common Core ire is aimed at the Obama administration
and its activist education secretary, Arne Duncan. Critics believe that
by incentivizing CCSS adoption through Race to the Top and by continuing
to express public support for the standards, Duncan and his team are
essentially usurping control over curriculum and instruction from the
states...

Our slim new book Knowledge at the Core: Don Hirsch, Core Knowledge, and the Future of the Common Core
has three large aims. First, it pays tribute to three decades of
scholarship and service to American education by E. D. (Don) Hirsch,
Jr., author of Cultural Literacy (and three other prescient
books on education reform) and founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation.
Second, it restates the case for a sequential, content-rich curriculum
for America’s elementary and middle schools. Third, it strives to chart a
course for the future, a future in which many more schools embrace
Hirsch’s Core Knowledge program—or something akin to it—en route to
successful attainment of the Common Core State Standards for English
language arts/literacy and mathematics.

Five of the essays included in the volume were first presented at a
December 2013 conference in Washington, D.C., cohosted by the Fordham
Institute and the Manhattan Institute. Video from that event, and a
terrific documentary about Don and his contributions to American
education, are available on our website at edexcellence.net/hirsch.

That day left us hopeful—not a word that often comes to mind amidst
the rancorous debates now swirling about education in general and the
Common Core in particular. Yet Don himself is, by admission, an
unwavering optimist; his enthusiasm is as contagious as his ideas are
bracing. So in that spirit, let us make the hopeful case that many more
of America’s schools are on the precipice of finally embracing those
ideas—and thereby boosting their students’ chances of achieving the
lofty goals that the Common Core standards prescribe.

Rethinking reading

Commence with this key Hirsch insight: Teaching knowledge is teaching
reading—and reading will never be mastered beyond the “decoding” stage
without a solid foundation of knowledge. Children cannot be truly
literate without knowing about the world—about history, science, art,
music, literature, civics, geography, and more. This is not a value
statement about what students “should” study; rather, it reflects
decades of cognitive science and reading research.

Once children learn to decode the words on a page, greater literacy
is attained only through greater knowledge. Reading comprehension, and
thus learning by reading, depends on knowing something about the content
of the passage at hand. If a fifth grader knows a lot about baseball,
for example, she will comprehend complex stories about baseball at a
high level. But if she doesn’t know a lot about the ocean, she will
struggle to comprehend anything beyond simple, introductory books about
marine life. The only way to help children become strong readers,
regardless of topic, is to equip them with a large store of general
knowledge—to help them learn something about everything. And that means
implementing a well-designed, sequential, content-rich curriculum,
especially in the early grades.

Yet most American primary schools have been marching in the opposite
direction: treating reading as a “skill” and pushing off history,
science, art, and music “until later.” As Ruth Wattenberg, the former
editor of the AFT’s American Educator magazine, explains in her
essay, the elementary-school curriculum has been a content-free
wasteland for decades, one that grew even more barren in the No Child
Left Behind era. Is it any wonder that, even as national assessment data
have shown decent gains in math achievement in recent years (at least
in the early grades), reading outcomes remain dismal? Although some
relatively small gains have been made (most likely due to Reading
First’s spread of phonics-based decoding instruction), high-school
scores have been flat for decades.

Bad news. But there’s some encouraging news, too. In his essay, based
on focus groups that he conducted with teachers, Steve Farkas explains
that elementary teachers welcome the notion of a knowledge-rich
curriculum. Indeed, they take for granted that it’s valuable. They may
have been taught otherwise in ed school, but they’re not philosophically
opposed; most aren’t even aware of the ideological battles waged
between “progressives” and “traditionalists” within the halls of
academe. Building students’ knowledge is, to most teachers, simply
common sense—and they’d like to do more of it. But first, the misguided
progressive ideas shaping schools need to be more widely recognized, as
Manhattan Institute scholar Sol Stern writes in his trenchant essay.

Another bit of good news: the single greatest force currently shaping
American education—the new Common Core standards, now in place in
forty-five states—explicitly endorses Hirsch’s ideas and calls for the
kind of curriculum that he favors:

While the Standards make references to some particular
forms of content, including mythology, foundational U.S. documents, and
Shakespeare, they do not—indeed, cannot— enumerate all or even most of
the content that students should learn. The Standards must therefore be
complemented by a well-developed, content-rich curriculum consistent
with the expectations laid out in this document.” —Common Core State
Standards

Says Robert Pondiscio, executive director of the advocacy group
CitizenshipFirst, those are “the most important fifty-seven words in
education reform since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983.”
But they are, alas, just words on a page. They’re not hard to
decode—but how many people grasp their content? How many states and
school districts will heed their call?
Though fundamentally an optimist, Don Hirsch does not yet observe
much heeding. In his keynote address to the December conference,
included in our book as the essay “Sustaining the American Experiment,”
he expresses his worry:

District preparations for the Common Core in language
arts are looking like district preparations for No Child Left Behind,
with lots of how-to processes, under new names, but with no emphasis on
systematically imparting facts—which are still considered “mere.”

That’s precisely what Wattenberg found when she examined textbooks,
basal readers, and state websites that are supposedly “Common Core
aligned.” They do, indeed, pay attention to the skills demanded by the
standards, even to the challenge to assign “appropriately complex
texts.” But in almost every case, they ignore (or never even understand)
the charge to put in place a content-rich curriculum so that students
can actually read these more challenging texts with understanding.

And while most rank-and-file teachers have no ideological bone to
pick with content knowledge, many of their supervisors and
administrators still hold fast to the false dichotomies and faulty
notions that Hirsch has debunked for years. Just weeks ago, Carmen
Fariña, the new chancellor of the New York City Public Schools,
displayed her own misunderstanding of the role that knowledge plays in
education: “It’s always been something I’ve believed in—we learn facts
maybe to take tests, but we learn thinking to get on in life.” (As if
one can fruitfully think if one doesn’t know anything.) In his keynote,
Don said, “The effectiveness of the Common Core standards will depend on
the adequacy of the ideas held by those who try to put them into
effect.” Indeed...

National advocacy groups powered by the Koch brothers and other
conservative megadonors have found a new cause ripe with political
promise: the fight to bring down the Common Core academic standards.

David and Charles Koch

The
groups are stoking populist anger over the standards — then working to
channel that energy into a bold campaign to undercut public schools,
weaken teachers unions and push the federal government out of education
policy.

The Common Core standards, which have been adopted in
45 states plus the District of Columbia, are meant to guide rich and
rigorous instruction in math and language arts. They have substantial
bipartisan support. But they have also drawn sharp bipartisan criticism
as Big Government overreach.

What started as a ragtag opposition led by a handful of angry moms is
now a sophisticated national movement supported by top donors and
strategists on the right. Conservative groups say their involvement
already has paid dividends in the form of new members and troves of
email addresses.
But that’s just the start.

A draft action plan
by the advocacy group FreedomWorks lays out the effort as a series of
stepping stones: First, mobilize to strike down the Common Core. Then
push to expand school choice by offering parents tax credits or vouchers
to help pay tuition at private and religious schools. Next, rally the
troops to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. Then it’s on to
eliminating teacher tenure.

“This is going to be a huge campaign,” said Whitney Neal, the group’s
director of grass-roots activism. She plans to kick it off within weeks
with a series of videos that will “connect the dots” between killing
Common Core and enacting other conservative priorities.

The campaign will build to a march on Washington this summer, perhaps
in partnership with radio host Glenn Beck. “This is definitely an
institutional priority for us in 2014,” she said. “We’re putting a lot
of time and resources into it.”

Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group backed by the Koch brothers, is pressing similar themes in town hall meetings across the country.

A key battleground: Missouri, where conservatives are pushing to get measures promoting vouchers and ending teacher tenure
on the fall ballot. Increasingly, the issues are being linked to Common
Core.

Concerned Women for America held a conference outside Kansas
City, Mo., this weekend that opened with denunciations of Common Core
and built to an address by state Sen. Ed Emery, a voucher proponent who
has compared the current public education system with slavery because it
traps students in government-run schools. Concerned Women, which is
part of a Koch-backed network of conservative organizations, will hold
additional seminars across the state this month.

The libertarian Show-Me Institute in St. Louis is also fighting
Common Core — and sponsoring policy breakfasts in both St. Louis and
Kansas City this month on the virtues of expanding school choice.
Meanwhile, the institute’s president, retired investment manager Rex
Sinquefield, has poured $850,000 of his personal fortune into promoting
the ballot measure to end tenure. Missouri will also host a two-day conference devoted to attacking Common Core at the end of the month.

Supporters of the Common Core standards have plenty of resources to
fight back. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent $170
million to develop and promote the standards. The Obama administration
has pushed them hard. Big Labor and Big Business both back them.

Still, supporters have struggled to counter the critics. They have
had trouble even understanding the contours of the smoldering
opposition.

“We don’t know who’s funding the other side, and to what purpose,” said Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, a nonprofit that helped write the standards. “It’s really murky.”

Such dark suspicions tickle Sean Fieler, the hedge fund manager who chairs the American Principles Project, another conservative think tank on the front lines of Common Core opposition.

“I wish the money stream were more murky here,” Fieler said. At least
at APP, he said, “most of the funding is from me.” Fieler, a prominent
social conservative who has spent big in the past to fight gay marriage,
said he has directed his organization to spend $500,000 organizing the
Common Core opposition and connecting it to his think tank’s
long-standing drive for school choice.

“The grass-roots support for this is stronger than for anything else
we work on,” Fieler said. “This is an issue with great political
promise.”

That same political calculation is evident in FreedomWorks’
draft plan for an Educational Freedom Campaign. Picking up the mantle
of parental rights “casts a passionate and caring light on our activists
— different from the image currently portrayed by media,” the draft
states. The campaign also offers a rare chance to attract new members
from outside the tea party — “especially minority communities.”

Already, the strategy is paying off. FreedomWorks started the year in
contact with a few dozen stalwart foes of the standards; it now holds
weekly strategy sessions with more than 200. “Common Core is bringing in
people who are brand-new to activism. They’re coming out of the
woodwork,” Neal said. “That’s huge for us.”

Americans for Prosperity’s state chapters also report membership
growing because of the issue, even in states like Texas that have not
adopted the standards.

“It’s been exhilarating” to watch momentum gather and allies come
aboard, Fieler said. “I would characterize this as a tipping point.”

The opposition movement is even starting to draw in conservative
Christian groups that in the past have mostly focused on promoting home
schooling.

Parents who teach their children at home aren’t directly affected by
the new standards but fear they will face pressure to follow them when
most textbooks, not to mention the SAT, are aligned to Common Core.
Homeschoolers also sense an opportunity to grow their ranks by fanning
anger at the public education system.

The board of the New York state teachers union this weekend
unanimously withdrew its support for the Common Core standards as they
have been implemented — a major blow for Common Core advocates who have
been touting support from teachers as proof that the standards will
succeed in classrooms nationwide.

“We’ll have to be the first to say it’s failed,” said Richard Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers.

Iannuzzi said he has talked with union leaders in other
states who may follow suit. “We’ve been in conversations where we’re
all saying our members don’t see this going down a path that improves
teaching and learning. We’re struggling with how to deal with it,” he
said.

The board also unanimouslyvoted no confidencein New York Education Commissioner John King Jr. and urged the state’s Board of Regents to remove him from office.

The move on Common Core put the New York union at odds with the
national teachers unions, which have steadfastly promoted the new
academic standards for math and language arts instruction, now rolling
out in classrooms nationwide.

Amid fierce and growing opposition to the standards — fanned by conservative political organizations
— promoters of Common Core have counted on teachers to be their best
ambassadors and to reassure parents and students that the guidelines
will lead to more thoughtful, rigorous instruction.

Now, one of the biggest groups of educators in the country is on record saying it’s not working.

The NYSUT, which represents about 600,000 teachers, retired teachers
and school professionals — and accounts for 15 percent of national
teacher union membership — is demanding “major course corrections” before it can consider supporting the standards again.

It wants more time for teachers to review the Common Core lessons the
state has been promoting, and it’s demanding more input on whether they
are grade-appropriate. Parents and teachers have complained that the
standards push the youngest kids too fast, demanding so much work from
kindergarteners that there’s little time for the play that’s deemed
essential for young children’s development. On the other end of the
scale, they have complained that the high-school math trajectory laid
out by the Common Core leaves out key math concepts and does not push
top students to take calculus.

The union is also demanding that all questions on the new Common Core
exams be released so teachers can review them and use them to shape
instruction.

Students across New York performed miserably
on the first round of Common Core exams, given last spring. The NYSUT
is insisting on a three-year moratorium on the high-stakes consequences
attached to the exams; the union argues that no teachers should lose
their jobs and no students should lose their chance at graduation
because of poor performance on the tests during a transition period.

Iannuzzi said the union still believes “the potential is there” for
the standards to succeed, but said that won’t happen unless the state
brings everything to a halt and effectively starts from scratch.

In response, Commissioner King issued a statement suggesting
flexibility; he said he would work with the legislature, governor and
Board of Regents to “make necessary adjustments and modifications to the
implementation of the Common Core.” But he did not back away from his
staunch support of the guidelines, saying that “now is not the time to
weaken standards for teaching and learning.” The statement, issued
jointly with Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, continued: “Our
students are counting on us to help them develop the skills and
knowledge they need to succeed in life. The higher standards the Common
Core sets will help them do just that.”

The Common Core standards are a central plank in President Barack Obama’s education agenda.

They were developed by nonprofits and organizations representing
states, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but
have been heavily promoted by the White House and by Education Secretary
Arne Duncan.

Ed Gibson leaves work four or more times a week to go to
Cassidy Elementary School to give his son Henry, 7, insulin shots.

Gibson,
a commercial real estate appraiser in Lexington, said he is more than
willing to take care of his boy. But he is frustrated that Kentucky
regulations and law do not allow school staff other than licensed health
professionals to give Henry his insulin, even if the staff has
training.

Henry Gibson

With Type 1 diabetes, Henry's body does not produce
insulin, a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other
food into energy, according to the American Diabetes Association
website.

Fayette County Public Schools, like many other Kentucky
school districts, is short on school nurses. The part-time nurse at
Cassidy typically gives Henry one injection each day after lunch, his
parents say. The second-grader usually ends up needing more.

"The
frustrating part about it is that there is a teacher's aide at the
school who raised a child with Type 1 diabetes. She's more qualified
than we are to care for somebody with diabetes," Gibson said.

Also,
"Henry's primary baby sitter, who has given Henry hundreds of shots, is
right there (working) in the after-school program" and often works as a
substitute teacher, Gibson said. But staff members who are trained or
have offered to get training so they could give Henry a shot are not
allowed by Kentucky law to give him an injection at school.

House
Bill 98, sponsored by state Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville, would
change the situation for Henry and others, his parents said. HB 98 and
Senate Bill 30, introduced by Sen. Julie Denton, R-Louisville, would
allow school staff who aren't licensed health care professionals — but
who have been trained by a health care professional — to administer or
help a student self-administer insulin. The current law allows school
staff to administer glucagon, which is emergency medication for someone
with diabetes who is unconscious from a severe insulin reaction.

Under
the proposed legislation, the individual administering or helping
students self-administer the insulin must complete a program consistent
with training programs developed by the American Diabetes Association.

The
decision to administer the insulin to students would be voluntary for
school staff, and parents would have to sign a waiver, Damron said. HB
98, was approved Thursday in Frankfort by the House Health and Welfare
Committee and could go to the state House of Representatives on Monday
for a vote.

Allowing trained school staff to administer insulin
"is a law in about 35 other states," Damron said last week. "It's not
meant to replace a school nurse; it's meant to supplement the protection
of children."

Administering insulin at school is at issue in a
pending federal lawsuit in Lexington that was filed in 2009 against the
Scott County Board of Education by the family of a child identified only
as R.K.

R.K. initially was not permitted to attend his
neighborhood school, Eastern Elementary, which lacked a full-time nurse,
and was assigned to Anne Mason Elementary, another school in Scott
County, which had a full-time nurse who could give him insulin,
according to court documents. The lawsuit alleges that the decision to
assign R.K. to the non-neighborhood school constituted discrimination.

"Not
all kids with Type 1 diabetes necessarily need assistance from a
licensed nurse," said Justin Gilbert, the attorney representing R.K.'s
family. "Some can self-administer insulin. Others just need help from a
trained lay person. We are troubled by the notion that kids with
diabetes must be segregated to certain schools having a nurse."

Attorneys
for the Scott County School Board did not return a message last week.
But in court documents, they said the school board did not discriminate
against R.K. Additionally, the documents filed on behalf of the school
board said Scott County schools did not train employees who weren't
nurses to monitor the student's blood sugar and administer insulin
because that could violate Kentucky regulations.

The federal case
"is an example of what we are trying to prevent with this bill,' said
Stewart Perry, past national chairman of the American Diabetes
Association and the association's current state advocacy volunteer
leader.

Perry said he had heard complaints that children in
Kentucky with diabetes are being home-schooled or, like R.K.,
transferred because trained school staff can't give them insulin.

Even
in cases in which students can give themselves insulin shots, they have
problems in Kentucky schools, Perry said. The American Diabetes
Association has received complaints that students with diabetes are
being denied the opportunity to play sports, become cheerleaders and go
on field trips, he said, because licensed nurses are not available
during those events. Stewart said that in 20 years of working with the
American Diabetes Association on a national level, he had not heard of
one situation "of anybody being injured, anybody being killed or
anything happening" because a school staff member without a health care
license had given insulin.

"The American Diabetes Association
believes that every school should have a school nurse," said Perry. "But
even if there is a school nurse, we need trained unlicensed personnel
to augment that school nurse."
Fayette County Superintendent Tom
Shelton said he thought the legislation was a positive move. "Anything
that we are able to do toward the health needs of our students is
certainly welcome news, " he said.

Fayette County can afford only
part-time nurses at schools, the superintendent said. The district has
an interim contract with the Lexington- Fayette County Health Department
to provide school nurses that the district is funding entirely. "We are
reviewing proposals for a new model program to begin next school year,"
Shelton said.

A fiscal note attached to HB 98 said there would be
no cost to the state if the bill were enacted. The Kentucky Department
of Education projected there could be a "small fiscal impact" on school
districts if they paid to train school staff, the note said. Damron said
the cost would be less than $1,000 for each school district, which he
said was less than hiring a school nurse.

There are an estimated
2,564 students identified with diabetes in the public schools, the
fiscal note said. But Perry said the numbers could be higher.

Meanwhile,
Henry is learning to give himself insulin injections and to count the
carbohydrates in his food, but he can't do that alone at school yet, his
father and mother, Jennifer Allen Gibson, said.

"The way the
blood-sugar levels fluctuate, Henry could need shots much more often
than just at lunch," when he typically receives one from the school
nurse, Ed Gibson said. "He could need it in the morning; he almost
always needs one in the afternoon after an afternoon snack."

During
the day, the school staff texts Ed Gibson about Henry's blood-sugar
levels and tells Gibson what Henry is having for a snack so the father
can decide whether he needs to go to school to give Henry an injection.

"The
situation is OK for me because I'm relatively close to school," said
Gibson. And, because he is self-employed, Gibson said, he can work
evenings and weekends to make up the time he loses during the day. But
Gibson said he knew other parents have a harder time leaving work at
unscheduled times.

Henry's mother said she thought allowing school
staff to be trained to administer insulin could bring increased and
consistent care across the state.

"It's simply people that are going to be willing to help out for the good of the kids," Jennifer Gibson said.

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KSN&C is intended to be a place for well-reasoned civil discourse...not to suggest that we don’t appreciate the witty retort or pithy observation. Have at it. But we do not invite the anonymous flaming too often found in social media these days. This is a destination for folks to state your name and speak your piece.

It is important to note that, while the Moderator serves as Faculty Regent for Eastern Kentucky University, all comments offered by the Moderator on KSN&C are his own opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of the Board of Regents, the university administration, faculty, or any members of the university community.

On KSN&C, all authors are responsible for their own comments. See full disclaimer at the bottom of the page.

Why This Blog?

So far as we know, we only get one lifetime. So, when I "retired" in 2004, after 31-years in public education I wanted to do something different. I wanted to teach, write and become a student again. I have since spent a decade in higher ed.

I have listened to so many commentaries over the years about what should be done to improve Kentucky's schools - written largely by folks who have never tried to manage a classroom, run a school, or close an achievement gap. I came to believe that I might have something to offer.

I moved, in 1985, from suburban northern Kentucky to what was then the state’s flagship district - Fayette County. I have had a unique set of experiences to accompany my journey through KERA’s implementation. I have seen children grow to graduate and lead successful lives. I have seen them go to jail and I have seen them die. I have been amazed by brilliant teachers, dismayed by impassive bureaucrats, disappointed by politicians and uplifted by some of Kentucky’s finest school children. When I am not complaining about it, I will attest that public school administration is critically important work.

Democracy is run by those who show up. In our system of government every citizen has a voice, but only if they choose to use it.

This blog is totally independent; not supported or sponsored by any institution or political organization. I will make every effort to fully cite (or link to) my sources. Please address any concerns to the author.

On the campaign trail...with my wife Rita

An action shot: The Principal...as a much younger man.

Faculty Senate Chair

Serving as Mace Bearer during the Inauguration of Michael T. Benson as EKU's 12th president.

Teaching

EDF 203 in EKU's one-room schoolhouse.

Professin'

Lecturing on the history of Berea College to Berea faculty and staff, 2014.

Faculty Regent

One in a long series of meetings. 2016

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